Bolt... on a natural high at the Baijing Games in China

The world seems as mesmerised by Usain Bolt's dancing as his record-breaking track prowess.

It's as simple as checking out online resource centres youtube, yahoo and Google, to name a few, for a complete picture of the steadily rising phenomenon the 22-year-old Jamaican athlete has spawned with his post-race antics.
Enter popular street move 'Nuh Linga', which has a euphoric Bolt sweeping and snapping inside the Bird's Nest after a successful 100-metre finish on Sunday.

Three days later he cops gold, another record, and creates history - this time for the 200-metre finals.

And he's still dancing, but the moves are different.
He's treating the thousands of cameras to the infectious 'Gully Creeper', created last June by local dancer Ice and immortalised in song by dancehall star-cum-Bad Boy artiste Elephant Man.

The celebration continues when Bolt entices his rival, American runner Wallace Spearmon, with the popular jig.
It's perhaps not as obvious, but 400-metre hurdles champ Melaine Walker, at starting block, briefly shows her affinity for dance, when she swivels her neck as if about to 'Dutty Wine'.
Though the Beijing Olympic Games for Jamaica is more about winning and running than 'wining', the dancing gives the world a glimpse of what it means to be a part of the dancehall generation, says cultural expert Dr Donna Hope.

"Usain is a member of the dancehall generation, and that's what he's used to," she tells Splash in a phone interview on Wednesday. "It's the music of the now, they are going to be celebrating in a way that reflects what they consider to be happiness."

Hope maintains that the spontaneity of the first move, the Nuh Linga, positions Bolt as the kind of party-hopper persona that one would expect from a man in his early twenties. Naturally, she dismisses his urge to 'buss a move' as showboating.

"He's young, he's into going to The Quad and partying," Hope says, "and that's his culture."

Still she asserts, "Culture is everything we are, the young people who are excelling in sports are from the garrison, and dancehall is very important there".

The growing fascination with the music and moves of dancehall, she says, will earn Jamaica even more attention from international entities.

"You can bet there will be a whole heap o' people who'll be interested to come find out how and what we eat; how we people celebrate or conversely come try to steal or copy what we have."

But for veteran dancer L'Antoinette Steins, "what we have" is an inheritance.

She too believes Bolt's moves were celebratory, in a way that not only spoke to his everyday party experiences.
"I see them as Jamaicans carrying on the heritage of body memory," Steins notes, alluding to the theory that much of contemporary dance is linked to African folklore.

"One of the things we as a people have always done is celebrate through dance. it's an epic that has come straight from over the seas."

Though Steins outlines that the training for athletes and dancers is different, she believes that the two disciplines are somewhat similar in technique.

Dutty Wine aside, Steins observes that Walker's pace and rhythm during her race is not unfamiliar to a schooled dancer.

"In fact the leg lift for jumping hurdles is what we would do in a dance studio and call it the fourth position leap."
But Bolt's cultural appeal perhaps means more to Ice than anyone else.

"Oh 'Jezaz Crice' man, me don't even know how fe say it," the dancer tells Splash, unable to control his excitement.
"Me give Mr Bolt a dance, it name Gully Bolt," Ice says, adding that he's received numerous calls from international press agencies eager to hear more about the dance.
It's several minutes into the conversation and the young dancer is still going bonkers.

"A gold holder did my dance in front a so much people?" he posed, "Oh God, man!"

Ice reiterates Hope's point about the garrison, maintaining that dancing is just a way for poor people to enjoy life when they have nothing left.

"Me like how Usain a represent the garrison," he says, "and him show the worl' seh good things gwaan a ghetto too."

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